Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Trophy Girl

1950's San Jose California but actually I think this picture was taken at the Alviso Speedway. The camera is pointed east and the hills in the background are the Milpitas hills. What I remember of this day. I was allowed to wear my tap shoes to the track. I was allowed to sit in the front seat of the brand new car (seen in background). My dad drove me out to the field after the heat. This gentleman is not my dad, he is the winner of the heats. Before the actual races begun. The heats were to set order of the hard top cars before the "main event". I was prompted to give the man a kiss (?!?) He was not my dad nor any of the drivers I knew. He was sweaty and I did not want to kiss him. I actually have other pictures of me as trophy girl. I even think Aunt Helen was trophy girl a couple of times. I should try to find those photos!!!

I bet her kids would get a kick out of that!

Aunt Doris, my mom, Aunt Helen and myself had our turns as Trophy Girls. We went to the field (pit)and presented the trophy, gave the winner a kiss, and had our pictures taken by the speedway professional photographer!

The photographer would take pictures all night long and sell them after the races. The next week we kids would go down and see if there were any pictures left over for the previous week and he would give us his throw aways.

Another thing I remembered about the races. If my grandmother was not available my parents took all four children to the races. The races were loud and always very long into the night. So I would make myself a bed on the bench of the grandstands. The grandstands were open and did not have sides. I remember getting very sleepy. I would lie down and wrap my arms around the bench and pray I did not fall through the benches if I was to roll in my sleep. I never did roll off. For which I am very grateful. One thing that did happen often was women would drop their sweaters or purses under the grandstands. They would call to my brothers to go under the stands to fetch whatever they had dropped.

As I locate more pictures of the speedway, I have many stories to share about the speedway. I am positive my brother has even more stories to share. I will try to encourage him to share them with me so I can add them to OUR FAMILY HISTORY.